Mass Effect 2: Difference between revisions

Mass Effect 2 is an action role-playing game with third-person shooter elements developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows and Xbox 360 on January 28th, 2010, following its release for Playstation 3 in 2011. It is the second entry in the Mass Effect series taking place in the 22nd century, after the events that happened in its direct predecessor Mass Effect. The player takes control over Commander Shepard, a human soldier who has to assemble a team to stop the “Collectors”, an insectoid species displaying the main threat for humankind.

This entry provides a broad overview about Mass Effect 2, analysing its core game mechanics and reviewing them under the premise of descision-making within the game itself.

About the game

Setting

Mass Effect is set within the 22^nd century within a fictive version of Milky Way, where the player has the opportunity to travel to accompanied galaxies through so called Mass Relays. The Mass Effect series established a massive fictive universe, even introducing different political organisations like the citadel council which is responsible for the mayor part of the universe and tries to maintain the established law for all Individuals who are part of the galactic community. Another faction is “Cerberus”, a paramilitary survivalist group, mostly consisting out of humans. The Core belief of Cerberus is that humans deserve a greater influence within the galactic community, especially tackling the council. Lead by the Illusive Man, Cerberus operates with any methods that could advance humanities status, including terrorist activities, assassinations and human experiments.

Characters & Races

There are 19 different alien races established in Mass Effect 2 (Ill.1). Roughly they can be ordered to citadel council races and non-citadel races. Council races include representatives from the Asari, Turian, Salarian and humans. Humans joined the citadel committee relatively late[1] , therefore having not so many representatives, thus having a minor influence. Additionally, this is where Cerberus’ motivation for a stronger influence on human behalf stems from. Races that are only inhabiting the citadel and do not take part in politics are the Drell, Elcor, Hanar, Keeper, Salarian, Turian and Volus.

Non-citadel races include races, who are extinct or do not have any embassies on the citadel, as well as having a neutral status[2] . These would include Batarians, Geth, Krogans, Quarians, Rachni, Vorchas, Yahgs, Protheans and Leviathians and obviously not Reapers and Collectors.

As the game progresses, the player encounters those different races. Every possible squad member he gathers, is from another race and every race comes with different traits, impacting the third-person shooter parts a little bit. This allows for a bit of customization on the players behalf because he can adjust his squad members to his playstyle. Additionally, the player gets different dialogues within those missions for every other character, increasing replayability.

Plot

In the year 2183, shortly after the events of Mass Effect, a spaceship by the name of SSV Normandy is attacked by an unknown hostile force. The Commander of this ship, Shepard, is pulled into space and dies via asphyxiation, but was retrieved by the paramilitary group “Cerberus”. Cerberus immediately starts the “Lazarus Project”, which has the simple objective of bringing Shepard back to life. Shepard awakes 2 years later, again in an assault on the research facility where he is being “reborn”, and is brought to the head of Cerberus, the “Illusive Man”. Shepard now working for Cerberus learns that human colonies are vanishing from all over the galaxy and that the main threat from Mass Effect, the Reapers(Ill. 3), are behind this. Only this time they are supported by and insectoid species called the Collectors(Ill. 2), who reside behind the Omega-4-Relay where no spaceship ever returned from. Shepard is than tasked by the Illusive Man to assemble a team to stop this imminent threat to humanity and is even provided the Normandy SR-2 spaceship to help him in his quest. After recruiting enough Teammates, Shepard is sent to investigate a supposedly disabled Collector spaceship where he learns that the Collectors are an ancient alien species (the Protheans), enslaved by the Reapers. Shepard than learns how to bypass the Omega-4-Relay before he is ambushed by Collectors.

By visiting a neglected reaper-drone, Shepard discovers an IFF(Identification, Friend or Foe) which is necessary to safely travel through the Omega-4-Relay , which has to be built into the Normandy SR-2. Now finally able to travel into the Galactic Centre, Shepard is able to reach the Collector base, where he finds out that a new reaper type is created by the collectors. Merged with the DNA of the humans within the abducted colonies, the collectors were able to construct a human-reaper hybrid. Shepard is forced to destroy this beast and based on the choices the player has made over the course of the whole game, several Crewmembers may lose their lives in the final battle, the same applying to Shepard.